Lockdown and Academics

Written on April 20th, 2020 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has certainly left every aspect of human life to a turmoil. The world has literally stopped. Academic activities in certain institutions across the country are not an exception here. The closure of academic activities in many institutions across the country clearly depicts the extremity of the situation. Apart from that, we have our own peers working in different firms and start-ups as interns for PS-2 in their second semester. In the times of defining the new norms, we have reported the modified working conditions through interviews for some of these students.

Effect on PS2

UBS (Finance)

First off, we have Kushagra K. Chanda, a current fifth year student pursuing a dual degree in Civil Engineering and MSc Economics. He opted for double PS and is working in a finance station- UBS Group AG, Mumbai. Here is what we got after having a conversation with him.

Location of PS and changes post lockdown: Kushagra works in the Group Risk Control division of UBS Group AG in Mumbai. UBS Group AG is a Swiss multinational investment bank and financial services company recognized as the largest Swiss banking institution globally.

They implemented a system of "work-split" from 16th March, whereby all teams would be divided into 2 parts, one working from home and the other working from the office. The rationale was to efficiently increase social distancing while ensuring that logistic requirements such as meetings, presentations and in-person requirements were functioning smoothly.

This was a cyclic process in which both teams would swap roles after two weeks, to ensure fairness to all employees. However, the establishment of the lockdown forced all employees to work from home starting from 23rd March, as the Maharashtra government had ordered the shutdown of all non essential services till 31st March. After this, the nationwide lockdown has now extended this scenario till 14th April, when further notices will be issued.

Logistics and views on working from Home: Working from home is a smooth process, owing to a dynamic and user friendly application, backed by a great support team. However, internet connectivity and computer processing power play a huge role, the intermittency and lack thereof having caused quite a few problems while working.

Stipend: The biggest question most students would have is: Are you getting a stipend at all? If so, isn’t it affected by the present scenario?

Kushagra tells us that he already received his stipend for the month of March. He said that the company is being highly professional about this sensitive matter and has assured the employees that their stipends would not be cut. In addition to this, UBS has announced a bonus of 1500 rupees to each employee to compensate for the inconvenience caused by working from home. However, he states that interns are not eligible for this bonus.

Communication and Involvement: UBS has been highly professional, with employees receiving email communications from authorities at various levels, right from the CEO to the CRO to the APAC President and the head of his department. The above-mentioned people have ensured transparency and encouraged any and all questions to be asked and answered promptly for the benefit of the employees.

Right since the beginning of January, the employees have always been kept in the loop regarding matters to do in and outside the office. The company has given the employees all the facts, data and required resources at their disposal. They have taken a huge leap in the HR Department by assuring employees of their job security and immunity from firing and restructuring for the present.

All UBS employees are given access to the Microsoft Suite, which means they use Outlook for mails and Skype for calls. Inevitably, these are bulky and have a lot of internet intensive functions, which causes them to lag. But those are just issues that could occur at any time.

Specific to the Covid-19 epidemic, it hasn’t really disrupted the functioning or deadlines of the company per se.

Pre-Placement Offer (PPO): Kushagra received a verbal confirmation regarding his PPO in December 2019. However, the situation has definitely changed due to present circumstances, as revenues of all banks are taking a big hit, which has put the expectations of many in peril by creating a cloud of uncertainty.

All new onboarding activities have been suspended temporarily in most banks. As hopeful as he is, Kushagra says he really cannot comment on the probability of the PPO coming through and that only the end of the lockdown can provide an answer.

Clumio Technologies (IT)

A major chunk of the interns work in the IT sector and most of them are located in Bangalore. To have an overview of the same, we talked to Parameswar Kurakula, a fourth year computer science student pursuing his PS-2 at Clumio Technologies India LLP in Bangalore.

Location of PS and changes post lockdown: Parameswar’s PS is in Bangalore, but he has been working from home since 16th March.

Owing to the work being mostly computer based, he sees no significant change in the workload or the hours he has to work.

Logistics and views on working from Home: While Parameswar continues to work, he feels that the communication with his colleagues and mentors is more challenging than usual. Guidance and pointers are also available at a premium due to logistic and time constraints in the communication channels between him and his mentors.

The further issue of everyone being online and available at the same time has added to his difficulties. However, they still manage to achieve their daily goals as their meetings take place over Google Meet or regular phone calls. They also use Slack channels to send work updates at regular intervals.

Stipend: One of the most important aspects of his PS apart from the learning outcomes, Parameswar says he is lucky to receive the same stipend as he was due to before the lockdown was imposed and the situation changed.

PPO: Parameswar states that he isn’t worried about whether or not his PS station offers him a PPO, as he has one in hand already.

Communication and Evaluation: Parameswar said that he would be evaluated based on the work he was able to do daily, his participation and so on, which would clearly be visible from the above mentioned platforms used for communication.

Thesis at NTU, Singapore

Students pursuing a thesis are equally affected. Harshvardhan Takawale, a student of EEE along with a minor in data science, is currently pursuing his thesis in the Lightweight Anomaly Detection of Malware in Embedded Systems at NTU Singapore. When approached, Harshvardhan was only too glad to give us ample information about the work he does, how it has been impacted and a careful insight into how research works.

Location of Thesis and changes post lockdown: As mentioned, Harshvardhan is pursuing his thesis at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, one of the top universities in the world for computer science and its variations. He had been working in NTU’s labs until recently, when the lockdown was initiated there and he was forced to work from his residence in Singapore. All the quizzes and tests that were to be conducted in the institute during this period were cancelled and all of Harshvardhan's evaluative components would be computed on performances thus far in each course.He has now resumed working on his thesis from home since the 6th April. As of now, he is unsure when he will return home to India.

Logistics and Views on Working from Home: While his work hasn’t been affected too much as it is mostly computer and system-based, a lot of other obstacles come into play. He says that numerous VPNs are required to stay connected to networks in Singapore, which is not helped by the fact that there are always inevitable factors such as the intermittency of the internet to cause blockades. Furthermore, one needs to ensure that the remote desktop is always running, and it is difficult to communicate with his superiors in the event that he is stuck.

Future Plans at NTU: Harshvardhan’s supervisor has already asked him regarding his future plans owing to the promise and dedication he has shown to his work in the short duration while he was there. Harshvardhan was asked whether he wished to continue working in the lab even after his 6-month long thesis concluded and he graduated. They haven’t discussed a funded thesis yet but NTU does have a program that allows students to do a part-time masters. In this, one can work in the tabulation team, earn a stipend and attend classes for the Masters degree all simultaneously. Harshvardhan has this as an option and will consider exploring it in the future.

Communication and Evaluation: The NTU network mainly uses Microsoft Tools, owing to which it has an easy communication tool in the form of Microsoft Teams, an online platform that allows you to chat and conduct presentations. Harshvardhan’s supervisor is in touch with him on a daily basis, which makes it easy for him to evaluate his performance and assess his development.

Learning Outcomes and Practical Application: Lastly, Harshvardhan points out that along with reading a lot of material and understanding new concepts, a thesis requires an unreal amount of application, most of which is achievable by various applications even on a remote desktop back at home. This is provided the work you’re doing is not hardware dependent, as you wouldn’t have access to hardware at home.

Luckily for Harshvardhan, none of his work is impacted by the lockdown and he continues to follow his regular routine, as expected by his professors and supervisors back at NTU.

All the results expected from him are still to be met as any tool he requires is available to him readily on his laptop.

What Other Colleges are Doing

The college administrations across the country were facing an unusual issue when the number of positive cases started rising which eventually led to a nationwide lockdown. They had to take some strident decisions keeping in mind the health and safety in consideration. The onset of the outbreak has been so sluggish that these decisions have taken quite a time to get finalized. Nevertheless, conclusions have been finally laid down regarding the conduct of academic activities during these confining times of quarantine. Different courses of actions have been taken by each institution towards the issue. There are some institutions which have been carrying on with the curricula through alternate mediums whilst some have decided to put all the activities on hold, bringing forward the summer vacation.

To begin with, colleges like IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kharagpur, NIT-Warangal, Vellore Institute of Technology and Manipal have announced a 2 month long summer vacation after which they will be continuing with their semester, followed by a short break and then a new semester.

Next, we have the institutions like IIT-Guwahati, NIT-Surat and NIT-Silchar, which have opted to check their classes till mid April or the end of the month. Later, they might get on with their curriculum via the online platforms accessible to students like Google Classroom, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, etc.

However, at this point of time, there is clearly a need to examine the pros and cons of these conclusions so as to take informed decisions which would fetch benefits in the future. This is the need of the hour.

However, we need to identify the tradeoffs associated with these circumstances. In the first place, we have the edges:

There is a high chance of the outbreak being arrested by the end of the holidays, which will put everything into place. The shutdown of all the academic activity has more or less kept up the spirit of lockdown, which is appreciable.
The institutes have cleverly repurposed the quarantine period and summer vacation, to save the maximum time.

If we take a look at the drawbacks,

Students and management alike got interrupted with their schedules suddenly in the middle of the semester and might naturally take a while to get everything on the track, even once colleges resume.
The components of their study modules got more or less disordered.
Holidays significantly got reduced, putting aside the break due to the official lockdown.

While it might seem intuitive that the students who are continuing their classes on the online platforms are at an advantage because they get to complete their semesters on time, it is not entirely true because they have their set of drawbacks. Let us now dwell into what the advantages and disadvantages are of continuing with online classes-

Firstly, let us look into the disadvantages:

Lack of face-to-face interaction- For learning something, this is something really imperative and the online classes do away with this factor. Although video classes would more or less solve this problem, yet, the impact of a live class cannot be substituted.
Internet issues- We should remember that not every house has a stable internet connection 24/7 and there will be many disruptions while carrying on such activities which would disinterest the student.
Surroundings- On a franker note, an atmosphere like the home does not intuitively create a zest in an individual to attend an online class.

Now the advantages:

As mentioned earlier, students will not have to wait till the month of June and complete their semesters in time (more or less on the scheduled date.
Teachers are recording their classes so students’ can view them at their discretion.
Most importantly, the administration will not have to reschedule their future timetables and everything goes on as planned. All this, assuming the fact that the online classes and exams shall go on par with the schedule.

We have to realize the fact that no matter what measures the colleges take to substitute the activities of class work, it is intuitive and inevitable that they will not be able to completely substitute the actual classwork. It’s very important for us to handle this situation and utilize the time we’ve been given in a noteworthy and productive way, following the safety measures to protect ourselves. By this, we can cross the barriers imposed and get back to our bustling and spirited lives as soon as possible.